© David Hosking/FLPA
Apple cheese
Crab apples may be used to make an apple cheese, though wilding apples may produce an even better result. Wash, core and roughly chop about 900 g (2 lbs) of fruit, and simmer in 300 ml (½ pint) of water. Once the fruit is soft, purée by pressing through a sieve. Add 450 g (1 lb) brown sugar to each pound of purée, and pinches of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, bring to the boil and simmer until very thick. Bottle in the usual way. When cool it should have the consistency of a soft cheese.
Apple mash
potatoes
cooking apples
butter
seasoning
Use potatoes and apples in the proportions of two to one by weight. Peel and halve the potatoes and bring to the boil. After about 10 minutes add the peeled, cored and chopped apples. They’ll both be cooked in another 10 minutes. Drain, return to the saucepan, add a few slivers of butter and some salt and pepper, and pound with a masher or fork. Do not add any extra milk, cream or oil, as there is plenty of liquid produced by the apples.
Jugged celery and windfalls
This is a wonderful old country recipe, gathered by Dorothy Hartley. It can be used as either a starter or a vegetable with pork or lamb.
For 2 people
equal weight of windfall apples and celery, say 250 g (½ lb) each
2 cloves
muscovado sugar
4 rashers of bacon or ham
Wash and trim the apples, but leave their skins on. Chop roughly and stew them with a couple of cloves and a spoonful of muscovado sugar in as little water as possible, until they are a firm pulp. Put a couple of slices of bacon in the bottom of the tallest, narrowest cooking pot you possess, pile the apple purée on top, then pack in as many sticks of celery as you can. They must be in an upright position, as it is the apple juices running down the fibres of the celery that makes this dish. Spoon out any apple purée that overflows, trim the sticks level and cover their tops with 2 more bacon rashers, cut to fit. Then bake in an oven at about 180°C/gas 4 for half an hour. If you don’t have a suitable tall cooking jug, an ordinary casserole dish will do.
Rowan, Mountain-ash Sorbus aucuparia
Widespread and common in dry woods and rocky places, especially on acid soils in the north and west of the British Isles. A small tree, up to 20 m (65 ft), with fairly smooth grey bark, toothed pinnate leaves, and umbels of small white flowers. Fruit: large clusters of small orange or red berries, August to November.
The rowan is a favourite municipal tree, and is planted in great numbers along the edges of residential highways, but you should not have too much trouble finding wild specimens. Their clusters of brilliant orange fruits are unmistakable in almost every setting, against grey limestone in the uplands, or the deep evergreen of Scots pine on wintry heaths. Unless the birds have got there first, rowan berries can hang on the trees until January. They are best picked in October, when they have their full colour but have not yet become mushy.
You should cut the clusters whole from the trees, trim off any excess stalk, and then make a jelly in the usual way, with the addition of a little chopped apple to provide the pectin. The jelly is a deliciously dark orange, with a sharp, marmaladish flavour, and is perfect with game and lamb.
© Nicholas and Sherry Lu Aldridge/FLPA
© Derek Middleton/FLPA
Wild Service-tree Sorbus torminalis
A relative of the rowan and the whitebeam, largely confined to ancient woods and hedgerows on limestone soils in the west and stiff clays in the Midlands and south. Up to 25 m (80 ft). Leaves are alternate, deeply toothed, in pairs. Flowers are white branched clusters, May to June. Fruit is brown and speckled, 12–18 mm (½–¾ inch).
The wild service-tree is one of the most local and retiring of our native trees, and knowledge of the fascinating history of its fruits has only recently been rediscovered.
The fruits, which appear in September, are round or pear-shaped and the size of small cherries. They are hard and bitter at first, but as autumn progresses they ‘blet’ – or go rotten – and become very sweet. The taste is unlike anything else which grows wild in this country, with hints of damson, prune, apricot, sultana and tamarind.
Remains of the berries have been found in prehistoric sites, and they must have been a boon before other sources of sugar were available. In areas where the tree was relatively widespread (e.g. the Weald of Kent) they continued to be a popular dessert fruit up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The fruits were gathered before they had bletted and strung up in clusters around a stick, which was hung up indoors, often by the hearth. They were picked off and eaten as they ripened, like sweets.
The tree is also known as the chequer tree, referring to the traditional pub name Chequers (the chequerboard was the symbol for an inn or tavern in Roman times). The berries were used quite extensively in brewing.
Chequerberry beer
I have the house recipe for ‘chequerberry beer’ from the Chequers Inn at Smarden, Kent. ‘Pick off in bunches in October. Hang on a string like onions (look like swarm of bees). Hang till ripe. Cut off close to berries. Put them in stone or glass jars. Put sugar on – 1 lb to 5 lb of berries. Shake up well. Keep airtight until juice comes to the top. The longer kept the better. Can add brandy. Drink. Then eat berries!’
© Derek Middleton/FLPA
Locally frequent in scrub and copses in the south of England, and popular as a suburban roadside tree. Also a very striking shrub, flashed with silver when the wind turns up the pale undersides of the leaves.
The bunched red berries are edible as soon as they begin to ‘blet’, like service berries. In the seventeenth century John Evelyn recommended them in a concoction with new wine and honey, though they are rather disappointing.
© Bob Gibbons/FLPA
Juneberry Amelanchier lamarckii
An American shrub naturalised in woodlands in a few areas of the south of England, notably on sandy soils in Sussex. Up to 10 m (33 ft) high. Leaves alternate, oblong. Drifts of white blossom in April and May. Fruit purplish-red/black, 10 mm (½ inch) with withered sepals, in June.
The purplish-red berries rarely form in this country, but they are sweet to taste, and can be eaten uncooked